Agatha eyed the blood bags piled beside her hospital bed, a smug little smile curling at the corner of her lips.
She's dying to see me dead, yet the words that come out of her mouth are dripping with hypocrisy.
"Did Elaine donate a lot of blood for me again?"
"This is all my fault. I'm always causing trouble for everyone. She must have suffered so much because of me. Do you think she hates me?"
Blake patted her head, his eyes brimming with indulgence.
"She has no right to hate you! This is what she and her mother owe you!"
I hovered in midair, trembling uncontrollably.
Owed her? But what happened back then—my mother was the victim.
After my father died, Mom worked in a factory during the day and took a cashier job at a bar at night, just to support me. She was honest and hardworking, wanting nothing more than to give me the best life she could manage.
Working in a place like that, she was careful about everything. She wouldn't even wear anything other than the plainest clothes.
But none of that mattered. Someone still set his sights on her.
The man who assaulted her was Agatha's father.
When Mom fought back, he wrapped his hands around her throat and threatened to kill me.
To buy her silence, he gave her a check afterward.
Mom was too afraid to go to the police. She swallowed her pain in silence, and the weight of it dragged her into severe depression.
But in Blake's eyes, all of that became evidence that she had seduced the man on purpose.
He approached me deliberately, pursued me with everything he had.
On our wedding night, he said he wanted to try something exciting.
I was lost in the tenderness of his trap. I didn't refuse. I let him pose me however he wanted.
But the next morning, those intimate photos were everywhere online.
Overnight, I became a slut in everyone's eyes.
The shock sent Mom into cardiac arrest. She was rushed to the emergency room.
And what did he do? He had someone strip me naked and drag me to her bedside.
Mom was so enraged she coughed up blood. Blake just gripped my chin and smiled, cruel and unhurried.
"You love being a homewrecker so much? Then let the whole world see exactly how filthy the bastard daughter of a whore can be."
I sobbed and begged and explained, but none of it earned me an ounce of mercy.
Even after Mom died, he refused to let me go.
Five years. I was forced to take over a thousand different medications and donate blood more than a hundred times.
I went from a perfectly healthy person to a broken shell who couldn't survive without pills.
And all of it—every last bit of it—because of a few ambiguous words from Agatha's mouth.
How could I not hate them?
I lowered my gaze and looked at Blake's worried face. My smile turned cold.
Well, he got what he wanted in the end.
The debt he claimed I owed—I paid it back with my life.
But what about me?
Everything I suffered. The truth buried for all those years.
What was he going to pay me back with?
Perhaps remembering just how miserable these past few years had been for me, something rare flickered across Blake's eyes—a flash of emotion.
He glanced back toward my hospital room and smiled, calm and composed.
"Elaine's had a rough time. Consider it the daughter paying her mother's debt."
"All these years, for your sake, I never once showed her any affection. But your health is nearly back to normal now."
"Once you're discharged, I'll send you abroad to recuperate. It's about time I made a fresh start with her."
I couldn't help it. I laughed until tears spilled from my eyes.
A fresh start?
My body was probably already stiff and cold. How exactly did he plan to start fresh?
A flash of jealous hatred cut through Agatha's eyes.
But when she opened her mouth, her voice was as gentle and sweet as ever.
"Blake, I know that punishing Elaine so harshly all these years for my sake—the one who suffered the most was really you."
"I let go of what happened a long time ago. It's my fault Elaine went through so much. Once I'm discharged, I'll leave. Just promise me you'll make it up to her, okay?"
